Anyone could workaround Webex?

[JeansenVaars]

Hello Everyone!

I am struggling a lot since one of my client uses Webex for its meeting. And webex has a horrible java applet client that doesnt take anything from PulseAudio / Alsa.

Anyone around here had any luck with it? I am using a dual boot windows for now to solve that with proper screenshare and audio support.

Thanks for sharing!
JV

[jimallyn]

I did a little googling. You aren't the first person to have troubles with Webex. The links below, found by googling for 'webex linux' may provide some hope and help for you. Apparently Webex wants to run in a 32 bit system, and one person found the easiest way for him was to install VirtualBox on his computer, and install a 32 bit OS in VirtualBox.

https://at.projects.genivi.org/wiki/dis ... x+on+Linux

http://blog.michelemattioni.me/2016/02/ ... -smoothly/

https://gazelle.ihe.net/content/using-webex-under-linux

https://askubuntu.com/questions/459838/ ... lease-help

Sounds to me like Webex needs to work on their software a bit.

[JeansenVaars]

Sounds to me like Webex needs to work on their software a bit.

I have contacted Webex and this was their response

Thank you for contacting Cisco WebEx !!

Unfortunately this is all that we support from our end.

Please have a check with these articles :
http://kb.webex.com/WBX4830
http://kb.webex.com/WBX34422
http://kb.webex.com/WBX82722
http://kb.webex.com/WBX79392

JV

[kpearsonxyz]

I've always been able to run WebEx on my Linux Mint distributions.

I install the 32-bit libraries, some OpenJDK packages, and IcedTea and it works fine.

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt install ia32-libs icedtea-plugin icedtea-netx icedtea-netx-common openjdk-8-jdk openjdk-8-jre openjdk-8-jdk-headless openjdk-8-jre-headless

I think that's all I had to do. It's been a while since I've installed everything, since Mint dev figured out how to do a clean upgrade, that is.

I don't install 32-bit Firefox. I run it in Chrome, Chromium (very slow starting up), Firefox, and whatever. It's been great since Cisco made the runnable script a javaws-executable, so if I need to restart it, I can just type:

Code: Select all

$ javaws /home/MyHomeDir/Downloads/CiscoWebExServlet

That kicks the WebEx off, and it opens in full-screen, then after a short wait, connects and I'm up and running. Now one thing Cisco won't fix (I've discussed it with them at length) is to use, MyCompanyName.WebEx.com/join/my.name. I can join a few co-worker's sessions that way, but not my own. It's likely because I started at the company later than the co-workers whose sessions I can join that way. They have older code in their WebEx account, thus allowing me to connect. I've explained that to Cisco, but they aren't very interested in rolling back my account to a pre-2015 codebase. I can't really blame them though.

At least it's working. As for Mint, I'm currently on v18.3 but plan to upgrade to 19 once the upgrade from the Update Manager has been added, assuming at some point it will be. That's another thread though.

My apologies for hijacking an older thread, but I think what I have to offer here is good.

Karl

[gianluca.brizi]

Many thanks for this post. I am following it trying to start a Webex Seminar applett. At the moment it seems that Webex is for only 32 bit systems. The applett needs the libpangoxft-1.0.so.0 library. I am going to understand to what package this llibrary belongs. Thanks for now.

[SpaceStrategy]

Resurrecting and old thread. Thanks for the instructions, but before I run the command you provided I was wondering if anyone had any updated information. It seems like WebEx and other meeting apps should be working right now (since March) to accommodate as many people as possible.

Is there any current or better info? Also found this https://superuser.com/questions/1539643 ... bian-linux

[GS3]

Webex is best know for its vulnerabilities and IMHO the best advice is to not use it.

[SpaceStrategy]

I don't like it either but it's for work and Zoom is our boogieman, so it's either WebEx or Teams.

[GS3]

I don't like it either but it's for work and Zoom is our boogieman, so it's either WebEx or Teams.

Yeah, it seems like all the choices are worse than the next one and there is really no ideal choice. It's Webex, Zoom or Jitsi.

Some years ago I started using VSee and it looked like it might have developed into something but it seems they concentrated and focused on telehealth/telemedicine and never became mainstream which is a pity because it worked well for me.

[SpaceStrategy]

I think we can marked this as solved, credit to user datassete. I didn't have to change Firefox to 32 bit, just followed these instructions and it worked. You must use Firefox though.

Simply Changing the user agent string to a Windows Client in Firefox solved the problem for me (Linux Mint 19.3 64bit, Firefox 75.0 64bit) after several hours of messing up my system with several different java versions, 32bit Firefox, Wine...

1) Enter about:config in firefox' address field
2) create String general.useragent.override
3) enter Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:75.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/75.0
4) restart Firefox
5) start Webex Test Meeting https://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html

[MrEen]

Any users finding this thread while trying to get Webex working now have some options above to try. If they don't solve the issue, please start a new thread, as most of the info here is quite outdated.

Dropping the hammer on this one!